A Coward Dies A Thousand Times
by Sashet
Summary: With Donna remembering and The Doctor still tormented by the effects of his torture help comes from an unexpected ally.


A/N: This follows on directly from the events of my story 'Towards a goal that few can hope to reach' and so you should read that first for this to make sense!

It's less of a PWP than before (but not by much) and features far less Doctor Whump and much more Doctor Angst.

Dr. D gets popcorn and a night of watching DW for the beta.

********

A Coward Dies A Thousand Deaths…..

……A Brave man Dies But Once

Julius Caesar

Act 2 Scene 2

_*******_

"_Doctor…you have to come back," she told him hardly pausing for breath. "It's Donna Doctor, she can remember everything and she's asking to see you." _

"_Donna?" _

"_Doctor…I don't know what to do – you have to help her."_

"_Yes… yes I do." _

"I'm at Torchwood," she added as an afterthought albeit an unnecessary one as the TARDIS had traced her call as soon as she made it.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," he told Martha, flicking the phone shut and sighing deeply, after all he had just been through and all that he had promised himself, he couldn't turn his back on his friends, not when he was their only hope.

It would be just one quick trip to Earth and the relative safety of Torchwood, he'd be fine…he was always fine...wasn't he? A burst of memories of a feisty temp from Chiswick who could always seem to say what he couldn't, or wouldn't, played across the Doctor's mind.

'_Is alright a special Time Lord code for really not alright at all?'_

'_Why?'_

'_Cos I'm alright too.'_

'_Promise me one thing – find someone.'_

'_I don't need anyone.'_

'_Yes you do, 'cos sometimes I think you need someone to stop_ you.'

"Oh Donna…I'm so sorry…," he said out loud sniffing back an unwanted tear and shaking away his despondency as he set the controls for Cardiff. "Just hang on Donna I'm on my way."

**********

Martha always thought it was impossible for a blue police box to appear in the middle of Roald Dahl Plass with all the noise and flashing lights that accompanied it and nobody ever seemed to notice and yet time and again that is exactly what happened. All around the materialising TARDIS people went about their day and never gave it a thought.

She watched from beside the entrance to the tourist office that doubled as an entry to the Torchwood Hub deep beneath the city of Cardiff as the TARDIS settled and after what seemed like an age the Doctor appeared. From a distance he looked the same as always, slightly crumpled suit, crazy hair and far too thin but, just for a second, she thought she saw him hesitate in the doorway of his ship as if he was….uncertain about something. Then he saw her and whatever she thought she had seen was forgotten as they rushed to meet each other and she was lost in his embrace.

"Hello Doctor," she said somewhat breathlessly.

"Hello," he answered back pulling free from the embrace and giving her one of his widest grins. "Did you miss me?"

Her smile told him that she had, even though she had a ring on her finger and another man in her life, she had never stopped loving him and she never would. As they set off for the tourist office the Doctor stopped briefly and cast a look back at his ship.

"Sorry Doctor, do we need to wait for somebody?" Martha asked mistaking the Doctor's actions as those of a man who was waiting for a companion.

"What?" he asked distractedly, lightly clenching his fist and rubbing the scar on the palm of his left hand with his fingers.

"Is there…you know…somebody…in the TARDIS with you?"

"Err..no…I…don't….no...no… I'm on my own these days. Better that way. So…," with an effort he turned his attention back to Martha. "Tell me about Donna."

"We don't really know what happened, but just a couple of days ago I got a phone call from Wilf, you remember him, Donna's granddad?" In her time line it had been just a couple of years since they had returned the Earth from the clutches of Davros but she didn't know how long it might have been for the Doctor…time with him was never straight forward.

"Of course, good old Wilf." He remembered the last time he had seen the old man, saluting him from a rain sodden porch way and promising to look after Donna on his behalf. He was glad that he had chosen to confide in Martha about what he'd had to do to Donna, deep down he had, had a feeling that one day she would need to know. "How is he? Does he still have that telescope? Sorry...you were saying."

"I got in touch…after…you know…just to find out how she was and let him know if he ever needed to talk about…things then he could…gave him my mobile number. He called a couple of times, just to say that Donna was…well Donna….temping in a city law firm and still missing the bigger picture."

"Some things never change," the Doctor interjected before a sudden wash of sadness swept over him. He was responsible for changing her whole life, first one way and then another. He hadn't had a choice, he couldn't let her die then and he couldn't let her die now. "Sorry…... Go on."

"Well that's about it really. Wilf didn't call again and we just got on with our lives. I mean we didn't forget about Donna it's just that…you know…your own life gets in the way and I didn't want to ring ….just in case I said something or did something to make her remember you. I'm sorry Doctor maybe if I'd taken more time this would never have happened, maybe we could have stopped her from remembering you."

"Don't blame yourself Martha, if it is anybody's fault it's mine."

"How do you work that out, you weren't even here."

"No but I took her memories, I took the DoctorDonna and turned her back into an ordinary woman with an ordinary life and I should have tried harder to save her. I should have found another way."

"I don't think this is the time for the blame game do you Doctor?"

"Quite right, DOCTOR Jones, as usual," he said ushering her inside the tourist office and descending into the hub. "Where's everybody?" he asked glancing around the unusually quiet and deserted space, only Myfanwy swooping high above them broke the silence.

"There was a spike in the rift action that almost went off the scale followed by multiple reports of weevils and blowfish and goodness knows what else all over the country so….you know Jack….he took Ianto and Gwen and went off to sweep up the alien life forms and Retcon the whole population if he has too."

"Riiiggght," the Doctor drew the word out long and slowly, he still wasn't sure he approved of all of Torchwood's methods. Yes, he'd admit they were better than before but sometimes their love of guns and drugs to solve their problems made him uneasy. "And when was this?"

"Oh….the day before yesterday." Martha had a sudden flash of clarity. "Oh my God, Doctor…it was the same day that Wilf phoned, the day that Donna started to remember! I was alone here in the Hub, they didn't really need me, good job too, and he called and...it was the same day as the rift spike Doctor I'm sure of it now."

"Bingo!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"You know what it was then?"

"No but at least we now know where to start looking. I need to speak to Wilf and I need to see the log of the rift activity and I need to see Donna and why didn't you call me straight away. ...what?" The Doctor had been striding frantically about pulling at his hair as his mind processed and analysed and then reprocessed all the information.

Martha smiled, she had seen him act like this so many times before, like an excited child and up until now she hadn't realised just how much she missed him and his infectious enthusiasm. She spun the ring on her finger as if to remind herself that part of her life was over and that she had made the right decision. "It's nothing," she told him. "It's just good to see you again." She felt sorry that he didn't have anyone to share that with anymore. "And I did call you...several times."

It was an unwelcome memory that reminded the Doctor why he hadn't answered the phone. A memory of pain, despair and loneliness, a memory of being more afraid than he could or would ever want to be. A faint gloating voice at the back of his mind was laughing at him…_'the Oncoming storm has all but blown out'_… he could feel his heart rate rising and the sweat on his hairline.

"I must have been busy but I'm here now so come on then, allons-y!" he said over-brightly forcing his thoughts from the past, grateful to have something new and interesting to occupy his mind and help keep the nightmares at bay.

"Doctor, earlier when we were outside you said that it was better that you didn't have somebody traveling with you. What did you mean?"

"Did I?" he looked at Martha and could see all of her life in front of her. A life he could never hope to have and then, in a split second, that life was gone and she lay lifeless at his feet, her body bloody and broken and he heard the voice that plagued his nightmares…"You could have saved her Doctor…all you had to do was give me what I wanted" and he knew he was right to travel alone. There were enough deaths on his conscience already….there would be no more.

Martha saw the dark cloud pass over the Doctor's face, dulling his normally vibrant eyes. "Doctor, you OK?" she asked reaching for his arm which she was sure was trembling very slightly.

"What?...Oh yes I'm alright…I'm always alright. Now then back to business...where were we?"

"Doctor?"

He knew that she wouldn't let up until she got some explanation for his comment "Martha," he took her hand from his arm and held it. "I lost Rose…. again, I turned your life upside down and I nearly killed Donna…. every time one of you followed me out of the TARDIS I never knew if you would come back and I can't…," he swallowed thickly pushing back the memories of his recent torture…."It's too painful Martha…do you understand…it broke my hearts when you left, all of you, but I can live with that, what I couldn't live with is if anything happened to you, any of you, because of me…I'm better off alone…only me to worry about…"

"But we chose to come with you; we wanted to be with you…."

"And now you have your own life…here at Torchwood with Jack and Mickey and I have my life. The lonely life of the last of the Time Lords, but that's ok, really Martha, trust me…this way is the best. For all of us."

Martha had a feeling that the Doctor wasn't telling her something but then she had often felt like that when she had been traveling with him. As well as being brilliant, funny and just a little bit foxy he could also be as stubborn as any man she had ever met.

"Come on then Doctor, time you saw Donna."

Martha had put Donna on the cot that Jack kept in his office. She was sleeping peacefully when they entered.

"I've kept her sedated pretty much since she got here," Martha explained. "I didn't really know what else to do and although I think it helps to keep the memories at bay she has still had a few nightmares."

The Doctor knew all about nightmares….although he didn't need as much sleep as a human he did need to sleep and ever since he had escaped from the space ship every time he had tried to sleep it had been punctuated by the most horrific nightmares. Vivid dreams that recalled his torture in every minute detail plagued him until he woke often with a scream on his lips and always with the deep rooted fear that this time it might be more than just a nightmare. He allowed the brief shudder to pass and hoped that Martha hadn't noticed.

"Good thinking," he told her. "When Wilf called what did he say about Donna, how was she?"

"He said she was asking for you, wanted to know where you were, why she wasn't with you. She told him she had a terrible headache and when he went to touch her she was burning up, so he called me and I went straight away. I didn't want to take her to a hospital so I thought this was the best place for her."

"You did the right thing," he said as he went and squatted beside the still, pale form of Donna Noble. He took her hand in his. "Donna," he whispered. "It's me, it's the Doctor." There was no response. "Don't worry Donna I'm going to sort this out, I promise; you just hang on until I can work out what's going on." He gave her hand what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze and got back to his feet.

Jack's cot wasn't big but somehow it managed to make Donna look small and frail as she lay there and as the Doctor looked at her he felt all the weight of Martha's expectations and his promise to Donna on his conscience.

He wondered if he was still the man he used to be or had his recent experiences changed him as deeply as he had started to believe. Saving Donna wasn't going to be easy for any of them.

"Rift activity logs," he said before he allowed the dark clouds of his despair to invade his mind. "I need to see the rift activity logs."

"Right, you can access them from any terminal upstairs." Beside them Donna stirred slightly, a low moan escaping her lips. "If you don't need me I think I'll stay with Donna a while."

"Let me know if anything changes," the Doctor said as he made his way back up to the centre of the Hub. "Oh and Martha…..thank you."

Alone in the hub the Doctor picked up several alien looking items of technology that Jack and his team had left where they were in their rush to leave and wondered if they had ANY idea of what they were really dealing with. He smiled ruefully to himself as he used his sonic screwdriver to deactivate the hidden self-destruct mechanism in a seemingly innocent looking small silver cube

"Captain, when will you ever learn?" he asked himself as he tossed the now harmless object back onto the desk, pulled out his glasses and dropped into the nearest chair. Flicking on the terminal beside him he was soon accessing the rift logs.

Spikes of rift energy didn't seem to be uncommon in Cardiff; most of them were small enough to go all but unnoticed. A few households might notice a dimming in their lights or the television picture freeze momentarily but nothing more than that. The Doctor smiled as he thought of the capacity of most of the human race to just accept things with nothing more than the occasional curse at some giant corporation they believed to be responsible.

With some minor alterations to his terminal he was able to patch it into the computer systems inside the TARDIS and trace the spikes back through time and space to their origin. He couldn't discern any kind of pattern, the smaller spikes seemed to occur at random and from random parts of the galaxy…the names of planets he had long forgotten flashed across the screen evoking memories of bygone times and bygone versions of him… places he hadn't visited in decades, planets he thought were destroyed by war or famine or the passage of time were there.

Some of the names made him wistful for the days before everything changed, before the Time War when the Universe seemed, at least to him, to be a better place. Some of the names made him shudder as he recalled the events that had taken him there in the first place and reminded him that the Universe was a place where hope and despair were found in equal measure.

The Doctor hadn't found anything in the rift logs that could help him work out what had caused Donna to start remembering her past life. He pulled his glasses off and scrubbed angrily at his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose he reached out to switch off the terminal when a name he had hoped never to see again flashed across the screen coinciding exactly with the largest rift spike for several months and on the exact day that Martha had said.

Stabbing at the keyboard he pulled the activity log back up and stared in a fascinated horror at the name on the screen hardly able to contain the tremble that ran through him. Subconsciously he took his left hand in his right, rubbing his right thumb over the scar as he took several long deep breaths to steady himself.

"Stop it," he chided quietly although even those words evoked memories that he had tried to suppress.

Never in all his long life had he felt as alone and afraid as he had on that planet. He had been beaten and tortured to the very edge of his life, to a point where he would have welcomed his own death but instead of having the strength to accept his fate he had been weak and selfish, offering his sadistic captor what he wanted in order to save his life. He hated himself for that weakness, knowing that it was only by the smallest glimmer of luck….something he didn't even necessarily believe in… that the Universe wasn't being overrun by a psychopath with the power of a TARDIS at his command and more than possibly a renegade Time Lord at his side.

Could this planet and this….man... be responsible for what had happened to Donna and if so would that be his fault as well? Plagued with the dark clouds of despair and self-doubt the Doctor wished that he had never answered that phone. To him it seemed that everywhere he went death and destruction followed in his wake. He was not only the 'destroyer of worlds' but also the destroyer of lives…lives that should have remained unsullied by association with the man responsible for the death of his own race. So lost was the Doctor in his own horrific memories that he hadn't heard Wilf returning to the Hub.

Wilf had always believed in aliens long before Donna had met the Doctor and was overjoyed to find that his beliefs were truer than he could have ever imagined. He loved the fact that his granddaughter traveled in time and space with an alien, even if he did look a little bit like an eccentric academic from the local University. He couldn't wait for her to come back from a trip with the Doctor and tell him all about the places she had been and the people she had met. When she was away he would go up to his allotment at night with his telescope and stare at the stars wondering if one of them would be where Donna was.

When, after the events of recent times, the Earth had been transported half way across the Universe and back again, the Doctor told him what he had been forced to do to Donna and he promised him that he would look after her. He'd make sure she didn't have any reason to think her life was anything other than 'normal'.

For a while he had hated the Doctor for what he had done as he watched Donna accepting her life as a temp in a succession of faceless corporations with her low aspirations and her unique ability to not quite 'get' what was going on around her. He remembered her as the bright, outgoing time traveling companion with tales to tell of what she had seen and done. He remembered the brilliant young woman who had saved them all from subjugation by a monstrous alien race and he had stared at the stars on many nights and cried for the loss of that woman.

Time had passed and so had Wilf's hatred for the Doctor. He still had his granddaughter and that was something he was grateful for. Donna may not have remembered what she had done on her travels with the Doctor but an occasional phrase or action would trigger a memory of a tale she had told to Wilf as they had sat under the cloudless skies talking of her adventures. He would smile at his memories and hope that the Doctor was alright and that maybe one day everything would change and he would be able to come back.

Now as he looked into the brightly lit Hub he saw a man who was not at peace with himself and immediately knew that it wasn't just because of Donna. The few times that Wilf had met the Doctor he had always found him to be a man of tremendous energy, he was never still and his mind worked at a million miles an hour, unlike the figure he saw staring at the computer screen. That man was frozen with fear, scared of something that Wilf couldn't begin to comprehend. Could this be the Doctor he knew? What could have happened to him to make him seem so….out of character?

Wilf hesitated from saying anything as he saw the Doctor tear his attention from the screen to stare at his left hand which he then started to rub with his thumb. He could see the Doctor's lips moving but couldn't make out the words and even from where he stood he saw the shudder that passed through the Doctor. He had no idea what could possibly have reduced the vibrant man he had met to this but if there was anything he could do to help then he would.

"Errr….hello Doctor," he said.

The Doctor spun around with undue haste, the sound of another voice breaking through his nightmarish reverie dragging him from the squalid horror of his dungeon prison to the here and now with just a gasp of relief that it wasn't the voice of his tormentor again.

"Wilf!" he exclaimed loudly. "You half scared me to death there… didn't hear you come in." The Doctor hoped he kept the tremor out of his voice as he forced his hearts to stop pounding in his chest. He leapt from the chair and met the older man half way into the hub with a crushing handshake. "How are you Wilf, still watching the stars for me?"

"Every night Doctor," he told him truthfully.

"Good, good," he strained for a semblance of normality in his words and actions. "How's Sylvia?"

Wilf rolled his eyes in mock despair. "The same as ever I'm afraid. She never really came to terms with everything that happened to Donna. She still gives her a hard time and she still doesn't like you very much!"

"It's always the Mother's Wilf, always!"

"And you Doctor, how are you?"

"Oh I'm fine. You know me, busy, busy, busy."

Noticing the Hub was deserted but for the two of them he asked. "You don't travel with anybody now then?"

"No…not a good idea really…some of the places I go, they're, well let's just say there not safe." His voice held just a trace of self-doubt and his thin frame seemed to just shrink inwards a fraction as if cowering from an unseen threat.

Wilf chose not to comment on what he saw. "So Doctor, can you help Donna, my poor sweet Donna?"

Running a hand through his hair the Doctor was aware that he was trembling slightly. He didn't know if he could help Donna, he really didn't and that scared him as much as the memories that the question evoked. The specter of his helplessness hung around him, the feel of his body burning and bleeding as his inability to do anything other than beg for his own salvation consumed him, sucked all his strength and all his confidence from him, leaving him a shell of the man who had stepped onto that planet.

He wasn't the same and he would never be the same again. He was a liability, a fraud, a man who jumped at his own shadow and questioned his every move. A man who was so scared of leaving his own TARDIS that he had been physically sick before he had stepped from it to meet Martha. If he couldn't even help himself, how could he help another?

"Doctor?" a questioning voice cut into his spiraling despair and he refocused to see Wilf watching him quizzically. "Donna Sir, can you help her?"

"Donna?" he asked as if he wasn't quite in the moment as his memories retreated far enough to no longer scare him and he could return to the matter in hand. "Err….not from here Wilf, not from here." He was slightly unnerved by the way that Wilf was looking at him, with a mixture of hope and something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He felt a sudden need to get away from the Hub with all its questions and expectations. "I need to get back to the TARDIS but I'll be back as soon as I can."

He pushed past Wilf and headed away from the Hub without looking back. "Tell Martha where I am can you Wilfred?" and with that he was gone.

Wilf stared at the retreating back of the Doctor and knew that something was very, very wrong. He had seen the same look that had crossed the Doctor's face in the eyes of the men he had liberated from the horrors of prisoner of war camps many years ago. Men who had seen things that no men should have to, men who had been tortured and beaten and forced to survive when all around them their friends and families were dead and dying.

Why did the Doctor have that same look of desolation and despair, a look that Wilf had never forgotten but had hoped to never see again? Maybe Donna or Martha would have an answer, they knew the Doctor as well as anybody, but did he have the right to intervene?

"Bloody right I do," he said to the empty Hub. "If it helps him to save my Donna I have to help him." He went over to the terminal the Doctor had been sat at and looked at the name still emblazoned across the screen.

Aurona

It meant nothing to him but it had obviously had an effect on the Doctor. He scribbled the name down and went through the Hub to Jack's office hoping for an answer.

**********

The Doctor was leaning against the solid door of his TARDIS panting hard. He had run across the Plass as fast as he could once he had left the safety of the Hub, scared that for every second he was in the open he would be seen. Seen and then chased and then captured and then tortured all over again.

It should have been irrational for him to have thought that way, he had no idea where his captor was now and there was no reason for him to think the reverse was true either. His nightmare may have started on an insignificant planet but it ended trapped in a dungeon on a space ship warping through the darkness of space. He had escaped and fled to the void and never looked back, never caring where he was or where he had been. He didn't want to think about the possibility that one day their paths would cross again, but deep in his soul he knew they would, they had to.

Unless he stayed hidden away inside the TARDIS deep inside the void where space and time cease to have meaning. He could run there and hide, hide from his nemesis, hide from those who would have him help them and most of all hide from the man he had become. He was a Time Lord with a lifespan of centuries, 'he' was a human with a lifespan of decades and it would be easy to hide from him until his life ended. Once the Universe was free of 'that man' the Doctor would be safe again, free to resume the life he had once so loved. He would be able to put his capture and torture and ultimately his betrayal of the TARDIS behind him and move on, all he had to do was run and hide.

The Doctor pushed himself away from the door and reached out for the nearest strut of his TARDIS. He was afraid that if he lost physical touch with his ship then he would loose his faint grip on this reality and the need to help Donna, and tumble back into a nightmare that was becoming more and more of his own making. The TARDIS was his savior and as long as he could feel her he reasoned he would be alright. She hummed gently in his mind trying to soothe his tempestuous thoughts as he slowly made his way to the console before laying his shaking hands on her dials tormented by the unwanted decision of what he should do next.

"What if I can't help her?" he asked his ship. "I can't just let her die….can I…but….if it is him…."

He couldn't finish his words as an overwhelming rush of pain blazed through his head forcing him to his knees, hands pressed to his temples as his mind burned with memories he could no longer suppress.

_FLASHBACK_

A cruel mocking laugh filled everywhere, words he could barely make out through the increasing level of pain that took away his ability to do anything other than drag in shallow weak breaths tormented him.

"Look at you now Doctor, what would the Time Lords say if they could see you now?" A hand lifted his head from where it hung limply against his bloody chest. He didn't have the strength to form an answer. "The last of a great race…I'd hardly say you were that great would you Doctor?"

The hand traced a line down the Doctor's jaw and onto his chest pushing not too gently against a raw angry burn and setting the Doctor swaying where he hung. The action sent fiery tendrils of pain spiraling through every cell of his body. He opened his mouth to scream but his throat was so raw that all that came out was a groaning plea.

"Please….stop…"

"Will you give me what I want?"

The Doctor forced his words out past the blood he could taste in his mouth, past the pain of broken bones and burned flesh, through the agony that flared in his hand and what seemed like a hundred other places.

"I can't…ever."

"Then I'm sorry Doctor but I can't stop," the voice held no trace of sorrow as its owner reached above the Doctor's head grasped the little finger of his right hand, prizing it from where it gripped the chains that held him. With a single calculated, vicious movement he broke the finger cleanly and this time the Doctor found the strength to scream.

"How much more Doctor, how much more can you take?" he asked, twisting on the broken digit grinding the shattered bones against each other as the Doctor grunted and cursed with each fresh wave of pain.

"Try me," the Doctor challenged with bravado that he had long since lost. Although his body was broken and bleeding and his mind clouded from the non stop pain, deep within him the need to fight this man still burned strongly. It would be a long and hard fight and one that the Doctor doubted he could win, but it still had to be fought. In 900 years he had NEVER backed down from a fight and this was not going to be the one that broke that rule….no matter what it cost him.

It cost him two more broken fingers before he passed out.

He awoke to both darkness and silence that were so complete that his senses struggled to comprehend what had happened. Before there had always been light, the sounds of his torture and the smell of his own fear, now there was nothing….no light, no sounds, …..just complete and stifling nothing.

The silence was as oppressive as the physical pain had been, clawing at his reason, setting in motion trains of thought that were as horrific as anything that had been inflicted on his tortured body.

The Doctor re-lived every minute of his captivity over and over in his mind, urged on by the dark silence that enveloped him. He looked for ways that he could have saved himself from his capture and all that followed it, but he knew that even if he found anything it changed nothing. His lust for life and adventure had taken down his defenses; his lack of a companion had failed to temper his enthusiasm to such a degree that he had failed to see the warning signs until his body was enveloped in a blaze of agony and his reality had become his nightmare.

He questioned how somebody other than a Time Lord could know so much about a race that had been all but extinct for many, many years. He opened his mind to the darkness searching for a trace of another Time Lord…for just the briefest moment of time he thought he heard a low steady drum beat and knowing what that could mean he almost called out into the inky blackness desperate for it to be real but then it was gone and there was nothing…..no Time Lord….no reason and as far as he could tell no hope of escape or salvation from the wracking pain that enveloped his body, dragging his reason and his life into an endless abyss.

In the darkness all he could do to mark the passage of time was count the steady beats of his hearts. The only sound was his slightly labored breathing and the occasional shuddering cough that shook him to his core. There was no other sound to indicate that he was anything other than alone even the fake dripping water had stopped.

He began to wonder if in fact he had been left alone….to suffer in layers of pain that fought for recognition in his mind until …..until what? If what his captor had told him was true….and the hurt in his body did little to dissuade him otherwise….he wouldn't regenerate or die….and yet he would also never gain the strength he needed to escape… just keeping him there seemed….pointless….he could hang there for centuries…alone….unmissed….the last of his race would fade into oblivion without anybody caring.

The darkness of his surroundings filled his soul tearing at what little hope he had left until it was shredded. He was alone, so very, very alone. He couldn't save himself and nobody was coming to help him. A single tear spilled from the Doctor's eye as he realized how hopeless his situation was.

This was NOT how he had expected his life would end. He'd always thought he would die in the course of some heroic action that saved the lives of millions and ensured that the myth of the Time Lords was kept alive. Yet, here he was alone, suffering more pain than he could ever have imagined, just waiting for death to take him.

Then with a suddenness that made him cry out against its intrusion the door to his cell was flung open, the room flooded with the most agonizing bright light and his captor silhouetted in the doorway. The Doctor had never been more grateful to see anybody in his life. He wasn't alone anymore, he wouldn't die alone and that was important.

"Ready to begin again Doctor?"

"How about a deal?" he answered, knowing that he had just done a deal with the devil for his soul, because he had been alone for too long.

_FLASHBACK ENDS_

In the reality of the TARDIS the Doctor was rocking on his knees, his hands still pressed against his head, which felt as thought it would explode with the clarity of his memories. Enduring the pain and the anguish once in a lifetime was enough but to relive every second of that torture in agonizingly realistic detail at the slightest sound or sensation was a worse nightmare. He couldn't seem to escape from that prison even though he had left it behind months ago.

He fell to his hands and knees retching, a cold sweat coating his body, shaking and unable to stop the tears from falling. All he had done was push the demons to one side long enough to allow them free reign now. He had thought that he could help Donna and had come running when the call had come. It had gone against his instincts then and now he knew that those instincts had been right. He wasn't the man that he had once been and he doubted that he ever would be again.

"Why me?" he asked to the emptiness of his ship. "Why me…?" Why was it always up to him? For all his lifetime it seemed as if every time anybody had a problem they couldn't solve, or couldn't be bothered to solve, then they called for the Doctor. And because he was who he was he ran to their aid, he put his life on the line time and time again to fight wars that were not his to fight…and he loved it.

All of him had loved it, the clown, the dandy, the small dark man with the explosive friend who called him Professor. They had all loved it, all of it, the running, the danger, the chances to show off. But all that love of adventure and a great mind had got him was a body broken and pushed to the very edge of regeneration and a mind shattered by self-doubt and fear.

"I can't do that anymore…" he told the silence that surrounded him through the heaving breaths and the tremors that shook his limbs threatening to tumble him to the floor with their ferociousness. The thoughts of Donna laying helplessly inside Torchwood, with Wilf and Martha waiting expectantly for him to save her flashed into his mind and spun in his thoughts interchanging with memories of a man who wanted nothing more than to hear him scream and beg, until the two became the same and he fell to the floor sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…"

*************

Martha looked up at the sound of somebody entering Jack's office; she hoped she hid her disappointment when she saw that it was Wilf and not the Doctor.

"Hello Wilf."

How is she?" he asked inclining his head towards the slightly restless form of his granddaughter.

"No change really," she told him looking at Donna. "I wish I knew what to do, I don't like to keep sedating her. I wish the Doctor would hurry up…did you see him?"

"He's left."

"Left?"

"Yes…. Said something about the TARDIS and rushed out like the hounds of hell were on his tail."

At those words Martha's face could no longer hide her anxiety. Maybe she was just imagining things and all the Doctor had done was return to the TARDIS to get something, or run some tests or…..or …but deep down she had this feeling, this little nagging feeling that just wouldn't quit. The Doctor had been …out of sorts... since they met and, although it really wasn't like him, she had a sense that this time, for once, he wasn't coming back…at least any time soon. "Well then I guess we'll have to work this out for ourselves," she turned to Donna and patted the sleeping woman's hand. "Don't worry Donna," she told her. "We don't need him, do we? We can sort this out for ourselves."

"Martha?" Wilf waited until she had turned from her patient. "Is there something wrong with the Doctor?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"I don't know really," he told her as he recalled the sight of the Doctor in the Hub, scared of something that only he could see. "He just seemed…"

"Out of sorts?" she finished for him.

"Well you know him better than I do."

"I don't know him half as well as you think I do Wilf. He showed me things that I wouldn't have believed possible, the most beautiful places and the most horrific places," she added as she thought of that year she had spent walking the blasted and devastated remains of the Earth in her quest to stop the Master. "And yet I hardly know HIM at all."

"Does…. Aurona mean anything to you?" Wilf asked consulting the scrap of paper he held.

Martha thought for a moment trying to recall all the places that she had visited during her time with the Doctor. "No…I don't think so. What is it?"

"I don't know. It was just a name on the computer the Doctor was looking at right before he took off. I thought it might be important."

"Maybe we should look it up?"

"Martha…" Wllf hesitated wondering if he had the right to tell Martha what he had seen in the Hub, the Doctor seemingly scared witless by a simple word. Reduced to a shadow of himself by what he had seen on that screen.

"Yes?"

He decided there and then that the less people who knew about whatever it was that had scared the Doctor so much the better. He'd try and find out all he could and then he would go to the TARDIS and see if he could help. He had survived a war that many of his friends had not and seen the aftermath of events that defied belief. He had held the bleeding bodies of boys in his arms as the shells reigned down on them and heard the screaming nightmares of those who had suffered at the hands, and worse, of sadistic oppressors. He knew what war was like, he knew what the aftermath of war was like and what he had seen in the Doctor's face was the same helpless agonized horror as 60 years ago. The Doctor was traumatized, by what he didn't know, but he helped all those years ago and he would help now.

"It's nothing. You stay with Donna and I'll see what I can find out," Martha looked at him skeptically. "There's no need to look like that young lady, I'll have you know I did a computer course at the local college."

"You did?"

"It was Donna's idea…she wanted to be able to keep in touch when she was…you know... traveling…what do they call us….the silver surfers…that's it. You stay and I'll go and surf!"

He left Martha tending to Donna and headed back to the Hub. The computer the Doctor had been using was still switched on, scrolling through the rift logs, just as he had left it. Wilf sat down and stared for a minute at the information flowing past his eyes wondering what he had got himself into, nothing on the screen looked anything like the things they had covered at college, some of the symbols didn't even seem to be in English. Not knowing what else to do he tapped the return key and the screen flickered very briefly showing a split second image of the Doctor huddled on the floor of the TARDIS before going blank.

Wilf wasn't quite sure if he had actually seen what he thought he had seen, so brief had the image been. He stabbed at the key several more times but the screen remained stubbornly blank.

"Hang on Doctor I'm coming, I just need to find out what this means," he waved the paper at the blank screen as if somehow he could convey his thoughts and deeds to the TARDIS. "Look at me… talking to a computer….Sylvia was right when she said these things rot your brain!" He shook his head and typed in the name of a well known internet search engine and started working. "Right, time to get to work."

After an hour of searching he wasn't much better off, all he had managed to find out was that it was a small planet deep in the Dagmar Cluster (wherever and whatever that was). Information on it was sparse; it was assumed to have an Earth type atmosphere and was roughly about half its size.

If Wilf had known the Torchwood computers had access to all kinds of supposedly secret databases – not all of which were from Earth – he would also have been able to learn that Aurona was a lawless planet that harbored thieves, killers, mercenaries and psychopaths, who came to sell their wares or deal in various illegal items. As long as there was money to be made nobody asked questions. It was frequently mired in disputes and squabbles between its citizens and those passing through and was the perfect place to spring a trap for a Time Lord known for his championing of the underdog.

The Doctor's captor was well known and well feared on Aurona.

Having found nothing to help him Wilf didn't really know what to do next. He didn't think he could just go marching up to the Doctor and demand an answer despite what he had seen. When the Doctor had first turned to face him he had seemed as if he was somewhere else, somewhere he didn't want to be. Wilf had seen the strain in his face and the darkness in his eyes as if he had been reliving something quite horrific, then it was gone. He might have thought it was his imagination but he had seen the Doctor's hand shaking and heard the very slight tremor in his voice when he said that some of the places he visited weren't safe.

Switching off the computer Wilf sat back and weighed up his options. He could do nothing and hope that the Doctor came back with the answer. He could tell Martha what he had seen but what good would that do – there would just be two of them worrying over something that might be nothing and that didn't help Donna. When it came down to it the only person who could save Donna was the Doctor – but not he felt the Doctor who had run from the Hub. Donna needed the Doctor of old, the man who had shown her wonders she could never have even dreamt of. He had no choice, even if he was mistaken in what he thought he had seen, but he was fairly sure he wasn't, he had to go and confront the Doctor.

He went back to the door to Jack's office, Martha turned to look at him. She seemed suddenly tired and at a loss to know what to do. Beside her Donna was more agitated and restless than before.

"She's getting worse," she told him. "I wish the Doctor would hurry up, I can't... I don't…oh Wilf where's he got to?"

"I don't know sweetheart but I'll go and find him. I'll get him back here as soon as I can, I promise."

Donna's eyes flew open and she gasped loudly, suddenly awake. She grasped Martha's hand. Martha could feel the heat radiating off her through that touch.

"Doctor?" she asked her voice slightly shaken, "Where is he? Is he here?"

"Donna, it's Martha, do you remember me?"

Donna tried to focus on the woman beside her but the pain in her head made it almost impossible. She could remember so much and yet none of it seemed to make much sense. She could remember things that she was sure had happened to her but yet how could they…she was just a temp…wasn't she?

_Biological metacrisis. The DoctorDonna. Molto Bene. You know you could fix that chameleon circuit…._

She could see the birth and death of the Universe, planets and people dying and living because of what the Doctor had done. She had his memories and they were killing her. Every time she remembered something, even if she didn't understand what that memory represented, it ate away at her body and her mind. She was thinking herself to death and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"Doctor…make it stop…please?" she asked not knowing that he wasn't there to hear her before she collapsed back onto the cot, her body burning up from the inside out.

"He will," Martha told her, pressing a cold towel to her forehead. "As soon as he gets back," she added quietly and with more hope than she actually felt.

Wilf blinked back the tears as he watched his granddaughter, she was dying and she didn't even know it. He had to do something and quickly. He wiped his eyes with his hand and with a last look he told Martha, "I'm going for the Doctor and I won't be back without him, I promise you that. You just do what you can for her and pray." Then, without another look back, he went to find the Doctor and if necessary drag him bodily back to Donna.

********

Inside the comforting safety of his TARDIS the Doctor was still on the floor unable to bring himself to face anything other than his own mainly self-induced nightmares. Thoughts and images of his time at the hands of his captor were all too vivid, too painful. No matter how much he tried to pull his thoughts from the darkness of his despair nothing seemed to work. Every time he tried to find a reason to go on, all he could summon was an image of him screaming in the solitude of his prison. For every positive act he tried to recall all he found was a weak man who was prepared to give a madman the power to rule all of time and space just to save his own life. A life that he now wished he had had the strength to end.

He had been the Oncoming Storm, the Time Lord who broke all the rules and stepped in to help, even when that help wasn't called for. He had saved people and planets, he hadn't stopped the birth of enemies and he had killed his own people because of it. But throughout all of those acts he had survived, he had walked away, lived on to do it all again and again, until now.

Now he couldn't do it any longer. One man, one simple stupid ape had taken everything he was and destroyed it. He had shown him his weaknesses and his fears, taken all the things he thought he stood for and thrown them away. He had failed to live up to his own expectations, pain and exhaustion, the prospect of being left to die, slowly, painfully and alone had cut through all the things that he thought made him the man he was and showed his true nature.

The last of the Time Lords was nothing more than a coward who would put his own survival above that of the Universe.

There was no place in the whole of space for a man like that he reasoned as another forceful memory of his captivity receded in his mind, leaving him, once again, shaking and struggling for a grasp on reality. This time he had barely survived and with every passing day he realized that more and more. His body may have healed but every time he looked at his hand and the vivid scar that crossed his palm his mind shattered into the depths of self-doubt and loathing from which he seemingly couldn't escape.

He…they…the Universe…would be better off without him. He was just a liability, a danger to everyone, especially himself. He wished he could help Donna but if he did then where would it stop? He couldn't live that life again…not when at any time, in any place …HE could…would be waiting. Unlike Donna he 'got' the bigger picture and this time there was no place for the Doctor in that picture. The Universe might suffer without him but it WOULD survive and eventually grow stronger, if he stayed….the consequences of that decision might spell the end of all that he held true and leave him with the blood of innocents on his hands.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand the Doctor noticed his lip was bleeding although he didn't remember biting it. The raw taste of blood in his mouth took him back into his nightmare.

_FLASHBACK_

The Doctor couldn't remember when he hadn't hurt, logic told him he hadn't been in the cell for more than a day or two but to his pain-filled body and mind it felt like the only place he had ever been.

The taste of his blood was on his lips, the smell of it filled his nostrils and even though every breath filled his lungs with fire as his body burnt deep inside with the poison that flooded through him with every stuttering beat of his twin hearts he still shook with cold.

He had endured so much, so quickly that everything had blurred into one long endless nightmare from which he doubted there would be an end. He had long since stopped wondering why this was happening to him, it took too much effort and he needed all he had to keep his resolve intact.

"Tell me," the voice that had come to signify pain ordered him.

The Doctor closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind of everything but the thoughts of Gallifrey. It was …it had been...his home and it was still a place that was inviolable. As long as he had Gallifrey in his mind, a place where he could be safe no matter what was done to him, then he had a reason to live and to hope. With one long deep breath he raised his head defiantly from his chest and forced his broken body as upright as he could. The pain rippled through him and he could feel the warm trickle of blood against his skin as he did so, it made him want to stop and scream but he did neither.

"Never….no matter what you do to me…I won't give you what you want." At that moment the Doctor still believed that he could hold out against the physical and mental onslaughts against him. He never believed that within a day he would offer his captor what he most desired just to stop his seemingly unendurable pain.

Even when the beating that followed broke skin and bones, bruised flesh and internal organs and left him coughing up blood he still had faith in his own strength. It would be a long and painful journey for the Doctor as he discovered that his faith in his fortitude was badly misplaced.

_FLASHBACK ENDS_

********

Wilf stood in the bustle of the Plass grasping the key that Martha had given him.

Even after she had tried to explain about how the perception filter on the key was tuned to the one that surrounded the TARDIS and would allow him to see the police box when all around him others couldn't it still looked like an ordinary unremarkable door key on a length of chain and yet he could unmistakably see a blue wooden box in the centre of the square.

"Well I never," he muttered to himself as he got closer to an object that only he seemed able to see. People just went about their business taking no notice of the old man mumbling away to himself, the perception filter on the key made Wilf as invisible to them as the TARDIS was.

Wilf walked around the TARDIS once and then once again, Donna had told him all about it, about how it had a library, a garden, a swimming pool and rooms that changed places on a whim, to him it didn't look big enough for more than two people….two small people who knew each other very well… let alone all the nonsense Donna had told him. Tentatively he reached out and touched the box and was surprised to feel solid wood beneath his fingers.

"Wood….it's made of wood?" he questioned letting the thought that wood wasn't a great material for a space ship pass without further comment.

Now he was here he wasn't sure what to do next, should he knock or just let himself in? He would rather that the Doctor invited him in but, from what he had seen of the way the Doctor acted in the Hub, he doubted that would happen so he'd just have to let himself in….but that didn't feel right either.

His hand suddenly felt warm and he opened it to reveal the TARDIS key glowing in his palm and he thought he felt a low vibrating hum coming from the metal. He raised his hand to the door and the glowing hum seemed to intensify.

"Right," he said realizing that the key was as good as inviting him to open the door. "Hope this is the right thing to do." He put the key into the lock and opened the door.

He wasn't prepared for what he saw inside.

"Bloody hell," he exclaimed as he tried to process the size of the console room. "It's certainly bigger on the inside." He fought down a wave of panic that threatened to make him turn and run. The inside of the ship was as alien as he could imagine, struts of something that looked like coral spread in every direction as far as he could see and in the middle of the cavernous room was a multi-sided console the purpose of which Wilf couldn't immediately begin to imagine. Before he allowed his panic to overtake him he thought of Donna and how much she had loved to travel in this ship and slammed the door shut behind him.

The Doctor was so lost in his own world of hurt that he hadn't even registered that somebody had entered his ship. He was still on his knees, one hand grasping the side of the console for support and the extra feeling of safety he got from touching his ship. He knew she would protect him, he could feel her in his mind helping to sooth the nightmares that plagued him. He was safe as long as he was inside her, only those who had a key could gain entry to her….and HE didn't have a key, the Doctor knew that with an excruciatingly painful certainty. It had cost him so much physically and mentally to ensure that.

With a look at the scar on his palm the Doctor clenched his fist tightly, as if somehow the fact he could no longer see the angry red line that slashed his palm would make everything that caused it to fade away as well. He swallowed a sob and blinked back the last of his tears…this was NOT the way a Time Lord should act, even one as broken as he was. Wiping the last of the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand he took what he hoped was a steadying breath and pulled himself to his feet.

What he saw almost made him collapse again. Standing in the middle of his console room, turning around slowly, blinking furiously and muttering about size and impossibility, was Wilfred Mott, one hand scratching his head, a TARDIS key dangling loosely from the other.

"What!" the Doctor exclaimed shocking Wilf from his amazement.

"Oh…," Wilf stopped in his tracks and turned towards the voice, he suddenly felt very awkward being inside the ship without an invitation, although the key glowed again as if to tell him that he shouldn't be. The Doctor looked disheveled, his face was blotchy and his eyes puffy from his tears. There was still a faint trace of blood around his mouth. "Hello Doctor."

"But how….?" the unasked question was…'did you get in my ship?'

"Martha gave me her key and I'm sorry but I let myself in. Here," he moved towards the Doctor holding out the key. "I think you had better take this back."

The Doctor made a mental note to change the locks on the ship as he got close enough to Wilf to grab the key from his outstretched hand before hurriedly taking a couple of steps back. "Why are you here Wilf?" he asked, a trace of hardness in his voice. The last thing he wanted or needed was anybody else near him. Solitude was what he craved, solitude and safety inside his ship, inside the void, hidden away from all those who would want his help and all those who would want his life.

"We were …." Wilf hesitated trying to read the Doctor's expression but his face was set in a hard impassive mask. "…just wondering if… well if you'd found anything to help Donna." The Doctor's face never changed, as if he hadn't comprehended what Wilf had said or worse still that he had and he didn't care. "Sorry…it's just….you said she would die if she remembered you and now she is dying …," now it was Wilf's turn to try and find a brave face when inside he was breaking apart with worry, "and you…well we…"

"Everybody is dying Wilf," the Doctor told him in a voice that was as emotionless as his face. "Me, you, Donna, everybody and I can't save them, I can't save any of them, not any more."

"Are you saying that you CAN'T help Donna?"

"I can't help anybody Wilf," the Doctor spun away and traced his hand along the edge of the control console. "I think you had better leave," he added as he fiddled with a lever to try and disguise the shaking that had overtaken him again.

"But…," Wilf didn't know what to say, this didn't seem like the Doctor of Donna's tales, the savior of the world, the man who would rather die than let injustice and suffering win. "It's Donna, Doctor…Donna."

"And I've told you – I can't help her," there was a trace of anger now in the Doctor's tone "So why don't you…all of you… just leave me alone?"

Wilf couldn't believe what he was hearing, he had never for one second considered that the Doctor wouldn't want to help Donna, after all it was his fault that she was like she was! He knew that all was far from right with the Time Lord but, from everything Donna had told him, he would never ever fail to help a friend in need, no matter what it might cost him personally. Wilf bit his lip in trepidation watching as the Doctor turned his back on him, knowing that whatever he did or said now would be crucial….for Donna it was literally a matter of life and death.

"If that is what you want Doctor then I'll go but before I do there is something that I have to say," the Doctor didn't react to his words but Wilf could see his body shake slightly as he continued to fiddle unnecessarily with the TARDIS. "And I don't care if you are some high and mighty Time Lord from God knows where and you've seen and done more things than I could ever imagine you're going to listen to me so stop your damn fiddling!"

Wilf's harsh tone made the Doctor stop, turn around and meet the gaze of a man who was running out of time to try and find help for something that he didn't even really understand. All he knew was that it was killing a member of his family and he just couldn't stand by and do nothing. The Doctor recognized the passion burning in Wilf's demeanor as something that he had once possessed and that with a final pain filled scream had been torn from his tortured frame by a man who wanted nothing more than to rule the Universe.

Deep in his soul where the last vestiges of the Time Lord still survived he knew that Wilf and Donna and all the others who had stood by his side throughout all his lives deserved better. He just didn't believe that he could give them what they deserved, what he had always given them, his all….no matter the cost. He stilled his restless hand but kept a loose grip on the console to anchor him.

"Say what you came to Wilf and then go," his voice was stronger and harsher than he had expected.

Wilf wasn't going to let the Doctor bully him with his words or his actions; he had stood up to anger and hatred before and would do so again.

"Let me help you."

"What makes you think I need or want your help?" the Doctor regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He both needed and wanted help he just didn't know how to ask for it. He was a Time Lord…the last of that great race…they had never needed anything…..until now.

Wilf swallowed down his anger and frustration. "Doctor…I don't really know anything about you…your people… 'cept what Donna has told me and that ain't much.. but I do know this.." he paused briefly and when the Doctor didn't say anything or make any move he pressed on. "I've seen that look before...the one you have right now…the one that says…help me."

The Doctor snorted derisively. "So you're a psychiatrist now?"

"No Doctor…I'm just a man, a tired old man, whose trying to save his granddaughter and maybe along the way her friend too."

"Whatever," the Doctor suddenly felt uncomfortable as if the massive interior of the TARDIS was closing in on him, trapping him, just like he had been trapped on Aurona. He couldn't bear to look at Wilf, to see his expectation and hope, choosing instead to stare at the scar on his hand as he fought down the rising panic and the dark memories that stirred at the edges of his mind when he saw the puckered flesh of his palm. He had been Donna's friend but now he didn't know who he was or who he was capable of becoming.

"Donna is dying because of you Doctor and you have to face up to that fact, to those responsibilities. If she hadn't ever traveled with you then none of this would have happened." His voice wavered slightly with the thought that he might yet have to bury his granddaughter.

"It was her choice," he butted in defensively. She had wanted to travel with him and on more than one occasion he had been grateful for her compassion when his had failed him. "She knew that traveling with me could be dangerous," he added as he thought of the numerous times they had been forced to run for their lives from some danger or other.

"And she told me that she always knew that it would be alright because you were there with her," Wilf told him. "And now, when she needs you most, you aren't there for her. Why is that Doctor, why now…why would you turn your back on a woman who saved your life….you once told me that she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe. Doesn't she deserve your help?"

The Doctor didn't respond he couldn't find the words to tell Wilf why, because to tell him would mean facing up to his nightmares again and he didn't want to have to do that ever again. Some things were better left alone, locked in the dark place in his soul where he kept the memories he would rather forget, like the death of his own people, the destruction of his planet and the pain of his betrayal at the hands of a psychotic madman.

"Tell me Doctor," Wilf was walking towards the Doctor now, his silences and attitude was trying Wilf's patience. "Why I shouldn't just knock some sense into you? This is Donna…DONNA….."

At the implied threat of violence the Doctor had stiffened, taken a deep breath and then, with a shuddering broken voice said, "I can't….I kept telling him that," he was staring fixedly at his hand, memories of his torture crashing against his thoughts, twisting them against him. "…I kept telling him that but he wouldn't listen…he just wouldn't listen…"

Wilf stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. The Doctor had visibly paled, his eyes were wide with fear and there was no longer any hiding the shaking in his limbs. When the Doctor looked away from his hand Wilf could see that wherever he thought he was it wasn't in the TARDIS. He was terrified of something or someone.

"Who wouldn't listen Doctor?" he asked gently.

"I don't know…he never told me his name…just kept asking me …." the Doctor's voice broke as he heard the sounds of his own screams and felt the pain of his torture in his mind as clearly as he had done when he had hung in the dungeon. He didn't try to stop the tears that welled in his eyes.

Wilf couldn't believe that this was really the man who had done so many wonderful things, saved so many people and planets, lived for hundreds of years and survived the death of his own people. He had seen flashes of that man during some of his visits to Earth and he knew that, right now, that man was lost to him and to Donna.

Many, many years ago Wilf had seen men beaten and starved into believing that their lives were worth nothing. They had the same haunted look on their faces as the Doctor now had, fear and despair etched into every line, so broken that they were fearful that a stranger's kindness might be nothing more than another cruel trick. The Doctor needed help as surely as those men in the wintry cold of Poland had, Wilf hadn't turned his back on them and nor would he turn his back on the Doctor. He cautiously walked through the TARDIS' vast console room to where the Time Lord stood and placed a gentle hand on his shaking frame.

"And he's not here now Doctor, it's just you and me. Do you know who I am Doctor or where you are?"

"But he IS here," the Doctor jabbed angrily at his head. "I can see him, I can hear him," his voice faded to a whisper. "I can feel what he did to me….every time I close my eyes… he's here again," the Doctor raised his frightened tear filled eyes to Wilf. "And I can't do this anymore…I just can't…"

"There's just you and me here Doctor, nobody else, nobody to hurt you…look around you…see…nobody…just you and me and if you'll let me then I'll help you and then maybe you can help Donna for me."

The Doctor tried to focus on his surroundings and the voice that insisted on telling him that he was safe but it was so hard to push past what he believed to be true. He wasn't safe, he would never be safe again and nor would those around him, not while his torturer lived and he failed to be the man he used to be.

"Tell me what I can do Doctor."

"Make this stop," the Doctor whimpered – it was the most pathetic sound that Wilf had ever heard – as he pressed his palms to his temples against the rising thrumming of his imagined pain.

For a long moment the fear that he couldn't help froze Wilf where he stood, one hand still on the Doctor's shaking arm, until he managed to shake himself free of his own fear and concentrate on helping the Doctor. Gently he took the Doctor's hands in his own and lowered them from his head. He thought he felt the ridge of a scar under his right thumb. He had seen the Doctor absently rubbing his hand or clenching his fist on several occasions.

"What's the matter with your hand?" he asked as he tried to turn the Doctor's hand over.

The Doctor snatched his arm free of Wilf's grasp. "Nothing!" He snapped the answer too quick and defensive to be anything other than a lie.

"Then let me see it."

"Why are you still here Wilf?" The Doctor tried to change the direction of the conversation. The scar felt like it was burning in his palm, just like his body had burned under the relentless onslaught of pain that had threatened his life and still threatened his sanity.

"Because you need somebody to help you and right now I'm all you've got, so tell me what I can do."

"Nothing….there's nothing anyone can do," the Doctor told him wearily as he recalled the hours he had spent in the darkness, "So it would be better if you just left me alone."

"I can't do that Doctor. You and Donna, you were friends, she told me that and friends they don't just walk away when one of them needs help. Donna can't remember you; she can't be your friend so I have to do that for her. I'm your friend Doctor…..let me in….let me help you."

The Doctor didn't think there was anything that could be done to help him and in any case he was certain that he didn't deserve any help. He had failed everybody, his long dead race, his ship, his friends and above all himself. He had been prepared to give the secrets of time and space travel to a man so vile, so wicked and corrupt that he would have taken those secrets and broken them wide open, used their power to subjugate the worlds he came across until he had everything that he wanted and nobody had anything left to live for.

He knew that somewhere in the background of all that had happened to him was the hand of the Master …manipulating and controlling the actions of the man who had wielded fists, feet and worse at his already broken body even though he hadn't realized that he was nothing more than a puppet….and that hurt him as much as the physical pain had done. The knowledge that the only other Time Lord to have survived the Time War was so warped, so damaged that he would stop at nothing to have the Universe bow down before him. The Doctor wondered if he had succeeded and he had eventually died at the hands of his captor would the burden of being the last of the Time Lords weigh as heavily on the Master as it had done on him. He doubted that he would have even given it a second thought as he went about his domination of the Universe, a domination that the Doctor's weakness had all but given him.

"It's too late now," he told Wilf, his tone heavy with his despondency.

"As long as we are both still breathing it's NEVER too late. Now why don't you tell me what this is all about and then we can see if we can't find a way through this mess. What do you say… Doctor....?"

The Doctor was certain that telling Wilf wouldn't help but when he looked at the set look of determination on his face he knew that he wouldn't get any peace until he told him something. He would tell him just enough to get him off his ship and then…then he would do what he did best…he would run and not look back….not come back…not for anybody….not ever.

"Somebody once told me that no good deed ever goes unpunished and I never believed them…until this happened," the Doctor held out his hand and showed Wilf the scar on his palm. "Now I have no doubt that what he said was true."

"I don't think that it is true," Wilf protested. "And from what I know of you it doesn't sound like the kind of thing you would accept either so why does that scar make you think differently?"

"It's not the scar that's important Wilf, it's….," the Doctor swallowed hard, lost for the right words to convey all he had endured and what horrors his damaged hand still evoked every time he caught sight of it.

"How did you get that?" Wilf asked hoping that maybe if he prompted the Doctor enough he would open up and tell him what had happened.

"Oh Wilf…Wilf….Wilf," the Doctor ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. Tipping his head back he closed his eyes and let out a long low snorting breath. Slowly he opened his eyes and fixed Wilf with a sad stare. "I don't think you want to know all the details, let's just say…I met a man who...well he didn't seem to like me very much… and …"

"It was deliberate?"

"Deliberate…," he rolled the word around his tongue, drawing it out…."Yes, I think you could say that."

"But why?"

"I had something he wanted."

"Did he get it?"

"No….no he didn't."

"Can I tell you something Doctor? I've seen people with scars before, scars that are in their souls well as on their bodies. Men with numbers tattooed on their arms…you know what I'm saying?" The Doctor nodded and smiled wryly as if the suffering of those prisoners of war was anything compared to what had been inflicted on him. "They used those scars as an affirmation of life…they had survived the worst that the monsters who had imprisoned them could inflict, they had lost friends and family and yet they had survived. They never forgot but nor did they let it rule the rest of their lives they got on and lived their lives, for all those who couldn't. Do you see what I'm trying to say here Doctor?"

"That I should be glad that I survived and just carry on as if nothing had happened?" sarcasm laced the Doctor's words. "It's just not that simple…I wish it was but it isn't."

"Why not?"

The Doctor could hear his own voice in his head "_Save me and I'll give you what you want" _and that was why he could never just carry on as before. No words or homilies, no matter how well intentioned would change the fact that he had found himself to be a coward. When it had mattered the most, when the future of not just mankind but every other race throughout all of time and space was in the balance, he had by his own exacting standards come up short.

He shouldn't have let the pain that filled every cell of his broken, bloody body rule his head; he knew what was at stake and yet he had twisted his own logic to argue that alive, even without his TARDIS, he still had a chance to right his wrong and then offered her up to save himself. The reality found him to be a barely functioning shadow of the man he used to be, one that would NEVER be able to fulfil the promise he had made to himself to restore the balance in the Universe.

It was the Time Lords' role to protect the Universe and he, the Doctor, was for all intents and purposes the last of the Time Lords and he had ALMOST failed, there was no solace to be found in the fact that he hadn't, it should never have been allowed to get that far. How could a mere human, understand that?

"It's….complicated," he offered as a lame excuse for not wanting to face the truth of his actions, as he turned away from Wilf and tried to put the security of distance between them.

"If you don't want to talk about it then….more fool you," Wilf was exasperated with the Doctor and on the verge of giving up hope, but to do that would be to condemn Donna to certain death and before he would do that she deserved one more chance. "It's obvious you don't want me here so I'll go but before I do…I have one last thing to say."

The Doctor paused in his stride but didn't turn back.

"I had thought you were a better man than this…but it seems I was wrong," Wilf's anger was barely controlled. "And to think that I looked up to you, admired you even, because of what Donna had told me, and it seems that not only did you fool me but you fooled her too. You weren't ever her friend were you? You just used her to show off how clever you think you are and she deserved better than that." His voice broke. "I wish she'd never met you," he blinked back his tears of frustration and anger. "She was your friend and you let her down and that's the worst thing of all…"

Wilf turned on his heel, he had nothing more to say. If the Doctor wasn't going to help Donna then he didn't want to stay another minute in the TARDIS, he needed to get back to his granddaughter and Martha and do whatever he could to help. He'd tried his best with the Doctor but obviously his best wasn't quite good enough. He didn't look back as he walked towards the door, but as his hand fell on the latch he heard a quiet voice.

"She was the best friend I ever had."

"And yet you still won't help?" he asked without turning.

"I don't know how to help her."

Wilf shook his head sadly at the words and turned the latch, the TARDIS door opened a fraction, spilling the last of the days' fading sunlight into the console room.

Hearing the sound of the door opening brought home to the Doctor the desperate nature of his plight. If he let Wilf walk away now then he would stay a frightened prisoner of his nightmares, trapped in an endless spiral of fear and hopelessness. That maybe who he was now but it wasn't who he WAS. To find himself he first had to admit he was lost and then he had to ask for help and all that was stopping him was his pride.

In the dungeon, at the hands of his torturer as his life hung in the balance he had had nothing left but his stubborn pride in being the last of the Time Lords to sustain him. When eventually even that failed him and he had begged for his life he knew that he could fall no lower, he could never be as humiliated as he was at that moment and so he had no reason not to ask for the help that he so badly needed.

"Wilf…please….don't go….I want to help Donna, really I do…but…," the raw emotion in the Doctor's voice held Wilf back from taking that final step back into the daylight and the reality of having to face Martha and Donna without the Doctor by his side…."I can't do it….not until…."

"Until what Doctor?" Wilf had a feeling he had heard this all before.

"I'm hurt Wilf."

"You mean the scar?"

"Yes the scar but more than that…so much more than that…" he couldn't hide the choking terror in his voice, this really was his last chance to save himself. "I'm the Doctor, the last of my race, or I was…now….since…," as he struggled to continue he grasped for the comfort of his ship and felt her suffuse him with strength, easing the worst of the pain and confusion that reigned in his head. "I don't know who I am….I'm scared Wilf," he paused and looked at the old man hovering in the doorway to his ship. "Please….help me."

Wilf shut the TARDIS door firmly and turned to towards the Doctor. "Two words I can't refuse," he told him with a smile. "Now does this impossible ship of yours have a kitchen, I could murder a cup of tea."

For the first time in a long time the Doctor smiled back….tea….as far as humans were concerned it was a cure all, and that was truer than they knew, and sounded like a good place to start. "Tea!...perfect!....this way." He gestured towards a doorway and fell into step beside Wilf as they made their way to the kitchen.

Soon, sat on opposite sides of a table, steaming mugs of tea in hand the Doctor looked at Wilf. "Thank you," he said. "For giving me another chance." Wilf just nodded, he knew that now wasn't the time for words, he had to give the Doctor all the time he needed to face his demons.

The Doctor closed his eyes, steeling himself for what he knew was to come and then with a cleansing breath opened them again, placed his scarred hand on the table and began to speak.

Time passed in a blur as the Doctor freed of the burden of his initial reluctance to talk about his ordeal told Wilf about _MOST_ of the horrors he had endured in his dungeon prison, the fears he had felt at the thoughts of dying alone and the nightmares he had suffered since his escape. Wilf listened intently, horrified that anybody could inflict so much pain and suffering on another and scarcely interrupted the Doctor at all. He wondered how he was supposed to help the broken, damaged man who sat before him.

The more the Doctor talked the more his self-pity seemed to turn to anger, as if by actually saying the words out loud they gave him a renewed, if different, sense of purpose, one he had not had since he had bounded from his TARDIS onto Aurona all those months ago. He knew now what he had to do to help Donna; he had to face the last of his demons, the devil at the bottom of his personal abyss, and show him that he hadn't won and he never would.

There was a sudden steel in the Doctor's eyes, a blazing need for retribution and revenge that scared Wilf as much, if not more, than when he had seen him vulnerable and frightened.

"Do you know what the Daleks call me Wilf….the Oncoming Storm…that's what… and do you know why….no….well I'll tell you why…," he leapt to his feet and hurried back to the console room as if he suddenly had an excess of energy to spare. "It's because I have fought with Demons and Gods." When he reached the central console with hardly a moment's contemplation he began to manically pull at leavers and handles, his long gangly limbs seemingly spread in several different directions at once. "Armies have turned and fled at the sound of my voice," Wilf watched in surprise as he pulled a mallet from under the console and gave his ship a sound thwack. "I've even met the Devil himself and none of them could stop me."

"Good, good for you Doctor," Wilf interrupted, he was beginning to seriously worry about the Doctor's mental health and not for the first time that day. "But don't you think we should go and get Martha now?"

The Doctor carried on obliviously, reaching out and turning an amber colored dial until the central column of the console began to rise and fall in a steady rhythm and the ancient sound of the TARDIS' engines filled the console room. He spun to face Wilf.

"Time for your first trip in the TARDIS then Wilf."

"But Doctor…."

"No time for ifs and buts now Wilf…hang on!"

The TARDIS lurched slightly before settling again and, although Wilf didn't realize it, they were now hurtling through space.

"Where are we going Doctor?" he asked warily.

The Doctor suddenly stilled and Wilf could see the barely contained fury in his body, the anger in the set of his face and the venom in his voice.

"To get my life back."


End file.
